Adventure games are always about two things: Pulling in the player with a compelling story, and giving a sense of satisfaction when they manage to progress further by solving some tricky problem or puzzle. Telltale Games’ Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent succeeds in both of these provided you’re a fan of the riddles, deductive logic, and prediction brand of problem solving. If you are, this is also, incidentally, a great one to play with a companion or two.
The story revolves around the titular Nelson Tethers, who works in the FBI’s Puzzle Solving division. To be brief, he is assigned on a field task, something that hasn’t happened in quite some time, in Scoggins, MN. He is assigned to investigate the sudden shutting down of an eraser factory, and it looks like the mystery is shrouded in, yes, puzzles. Sounds trivial, but this turns out to be the eraser company that the White House itself uses, so hey… priorities. Appropriate to any detective fiction, there is of course more to the tale than mere erasers and the White House. In fact, come the tale’s end, the really juicy part of the story only just begins, and so many questions are left unanswered that only a sequel could do them justice. Overall, it’s presented well, with a dark sense of humor and a great sense of mystery and intrigue. However, the brevity of the game makes it feel more like an introduction to a much wider arc than what’s here. Basically, it will grab you, but you’ll likely be wanting more. Since this is a new story for Telltale, though, there doesn’t seem to be much certainty that the story will continue. I imagine it’s due to the risk of a new franchise and all, but the story definitely demands a little more closure.
The first thing you’ll notice when you start the game is the unique presentation. Animation is stiff, and effects are used very minimally. Somehow, I’m still impressed with this game visually. The hand-drawn art style makes characters expressive, and the sparse animation actually makes the whole experience similar to flipping through pages of a graphic novel. On top of that, there is appropriately ominous music that actually contrasts with some of the sillier story points in neat ways. Garden gnomes shouldn’t seem as creepy as they do here, and the music has a lot to do with it. Combined with the story, it’s rather attractive. It also goes to show that creativity goes just as far in constituting good graphics as numbers of polygons or shaders do.
The other half of adventure gaming is the puzzles and problem solving, and here the game certainly does well. Unlike the common adventure formula where you have your character interact with NPC’s, collect items, and explore to solve problems and progress, Puzzle Agent is a little more blunt. You still explore and interact with people, but dialog is pretty basic, and problems are presented to you in the form of actual puzzles. And these are the “Get four gallons of water with only a three- and five-gallon jug” types. You’ll have to use a lot of deductive logic, predicting, and sometimes just plain old piecing a visual puzzle together. Solve them, and the story will continue to unfold.
The game’s difficulty, surprisingly, does not increase over time. I found about two puzzles that truly defeated me, and one appeared fairly early on in the game. To help in these situations, the game does have gobs of gum stuck on walls and floors throughout the town of Scoggins. Gum helps Tethers focus; which to the player means it’s a hint. Each puzzle has three hints, and at the expense of a high score, you can use up a piece of gum to see one. If that still fails you, and you come to the conclusion after sporadic guessing, the game is also kind enough to have a “How?” button that explains what you missed. They may as well have labeled this button “Prepare to feel dumb,” but all the same it’s appreciated. One nice thing about this format is it welcomes help and teamwork. One of those real bafflers drove me to call on the significant other to help me out. As it turns out, she didn’t help at all, but the point still stands. It’s just nice to play this game and look stumped at the screen with someone by your side.
Surely, there’s a lot to like. However, there’s a part of me that’s not totally sure it’s a $10 value. This took me about the length of time it takes me to complete an episode from their Sam & Max series (About five hours, give or take), and one episode of that runs someone $9. For some reason, this amount makes more sense to me, even though it’s one measly buck. It probably is a fair price, especially since there is no guarantee the story will continue, but still feels a bit… high. Not overpriced… just high.
All told, the game is good. I had a good time playing it, and that’s saying a lot since a good chunk of your time is spent staring blankly at the screen while your brain squirms. Calling in for a helping hand can also add to the fun of the experience. Whether the asking price sounds worthwhile to you will depend on 1) How much you like a good fun mystery with a sense of humor about itself, and 2) How much you like figuring out things like who ordered what plate based on three vague clues.
A review code was provided and did not affect the outcome of this review. This is a review of the PC build.
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